Onboarding New Hires: Strategies for Success

1. Introduction: high class. Welcome to on boarding one of wine. My name is actually Rouse. And I'll be your professor for this course. I'm thrilled that you chose to join me. I'm super passionate about on boarding. I think it's absolutely critical code for an employee to be successful within an organization. They don't start out on the right foot. They're never gonna get up and ready and productive and stay with the company for a long period of time. So you might have on boarding already. You might have no on boarding. This class will really help you with some of those fundamentals I'm boarding is a 30 60 90 day process a lot longer than just the course that will be laying out here. But this should give you a baseline. So thanks again for signing up. And I hope you enjoy the course. 2. Why Does Onboarding Matter?: Let's dive right in. Why does on boarding matter? It takes weeks, months, sometimes even longer to find that great candidate for a role. You have talent acquisition. You have hiring managers, and you have a lot of others investing time to find that perfect candidate. Do you interview them on their skills? He talked about their culture. You get them all excited, they get the offer, and then what? You leave them to fend for themselves. That's not a great experience on boarding. It's all about the new hire experience. It's making them feel comfortable and bought in right away. It's teaching them about the company and the culture and just the overall flow of how things should work and how it will affect them. It really sets him up to be successful within your company. It makes them want to be part of the company. Long term, that's my on. Boarding is so important. So as we work our way through this, keep those things in mind. You should never have a new employee starting and wondering what's going on. Having that feeling of insecurity, which comes naturally when you start a new job, is something that you're trying to get rid off. And as faras r A y. You really want them to be up and productive and feelings matter. Someone is going to feel more engaged and will be ultimately more productive if they get on board it properly. 3. Dos and Don'ts : Let's talk about some do's and don't of on boarding. I hate to start with the negative, but we're going to start with some of the donuts. So some things you don't want to do you don't want on boarding to actually start on day one . You wanted to start prior to the employees coming on board, send them their paperwork, get them all the information that they can. You want them to feel comfortable. The last thing you need is someone feeling confused and lost on their first day. Don't forget to tell them how to get to the office. What time to arrive in what to wear on the first day. These things might seem like second nature to you, but they're not to your new hire. What we do is best practice is a week prior to that employee starting. Our office manager or HR coordinator will send an email to them, and it will give them all of the logistics. Let them know what time to show up who to ask for, you know, Will lunch be served on their first day? These are things that seem a little silly, but they're not to that new hire. Really? The ultimate goal of this, um prior to email is to make them feel excited and comfortable. Don't forget to give your new hire a tour when they arrived. You want someone to show them around the building right away? I know it might seem silly to show someone where the bathroom is, but it could save some embarrassment for that new higher later on. Don't leave them to complete amount of paperwork on their first day. Believe I mentioned this earlier, but this is really important. Putting someone in a room with 100 different documents for them to read through and telling them that the next hour this is what they're gonna be doing is not a good experience. This is not the way you want to set the tone for that. You hire. Also don't leave the higher alone on their first day for extended periods of time. I know is a hiring manager as HR as talent acquisition? You're probably busy. You're pulled in a 1,000,000 different directions and you really just want this employee to get up to speed as quick as possible so you can delegate to them and they can start on their role. But to leave them alone for extended period of time, we'll get them nervous. We'll probably get a little bored. They'll get a little antsy. You don't want to do this, especially at lunch. And again, I know this seems so silly. But to leave someone alone on their first day at lunch to tell them to fend for themselves can really make someone uneasy. And you don't want that for your new hire. Confused new hire is not a great new higher so let's talk about how to get it right prior to your employees starting. Make sure you send them their paperwork. If you haven't each Ras, this is the perfect time for them to get exposure to that. Send them a welcome email. Let them know how excited you are to have them on board. This can come from the hiring manager. It could come from the recruiter. It can come from HR. It can come from all of the above. I personally, when I have a new higher, especially if they're starting a few weeks out and there's a lag time. I send them a couple different things. I send them an email and then I have a no actually mailed to them from the hiring manager signed by the team, saying how excited we are. It's these little things that are extra that maybe they take two minutes out of your day. But they really set a great tone for that new hire. Other things to do after you show them around the office and get them set up at their desk is to go over their schedule with them for the first week or two. Talk to them about what they're going to experience. Tell them about your on boarding program. Tell them about the area and places to get lunch or things that they should keep an eye out for. Let them know where you send out company announcements and then let them get how little time to acclimate to their desk. Get into their email so 4. Setting the Scene: Now that you've got your new higher in the office, let's really get down to setting the scene for what that program is going to look like. So what we forced me to figure out is what you're trying to accomplish. Do you currently have an on boarding program that you're looking to revamp? Do you remember what you went through when you were a new hire? Did it work? Did it not work? What did you like? What? Didn't you like a great way to figure out what you want to accomplish and how to best approach an on boarding program is to serve a recent hires. We'll have the best insight for you. You might be building this from scratch. There's still good learning there, even if you've never had a program before. So what you want to really do is get all the information you can figure out what your goals are before you start diving in what I like to do when I step into any organization where I'm gonna be taking over an on boarding is sending out a survey to employees, all employees that started within last 30 or 60 days, depending on how large. Those hiring classes were to get a little bit of feedback toe. Ask them, you know, what did they love? What they love? What can we improve on? And I let them know that we're gonna be putting these things into actionable steps so that the next new hires doesn't have the same experience. Or maybe they dio Maybe your on boarding is flawless. And this is just a way to reconfirm that. How often are you planning to run an on boarding program? Are you hiring Adam at a huge clip? Are you hiring? You know, 20 people a week? Are you in a hypergrowth mode or is it more of a one off scenario? So maybe you're creating a program where you know you won't have another higher for three months, and that's okay. You're trying to get ahead of it. You'll have that one new higher. You'll ask them about their experience. Who needs to be involved in the program? And how long should this program bait? So now we're talking a little bit more about the logistics. Will your new hires get to meet on H department head? So I've worked in very small organizations I working very large organizations in some organisations. The CEO needs them on their first day, he tells him. You know all about the company, what we do. He tells about the culture of the company and our core values. He really speaks to the employees, and it's a great experience. However, that's in a smaller company where you have direct access to the CEO in a company with thousands of people. You might not have that. So who do you want to be involved? Who is it important for all new hires to meet within their first few weeks? What is the flow of the company will get into this a little bit later when we actually speck out a program. But start thinking about how things work in your company. Does someone, um, thinking from a an actual customer perspective? Does the customer coming through sales? Do they come in through customer success? Do they go through product demos right away? How do things flow? How to customers come in? What's it most important for your new employees to learn about? Also, how how will you measure success Will you? Will management be asking you about our why is this something that you need to prove to them? So are you gonna have to track productivity and engagement embers later down the line? Are you gonna be tracking this by that survey that we mentioned before? Just asking about experience and again, that a kind of my final point is Do you have any survey data or anything that you've picked up to compare this this to? Have you looked at past programs that you've used? Maybe you have something that hasn't been super successful. Maybe you've had some that has been really successful, but you're looking to tweak it, you know? Again, figure out your goals. This is what you should be working on, probably for the first day of this class. Really figuring out what your goals are before we dive in. Deeper. Later on 5. Developing an Onboarding Program: Let's dive into the real meat of this program. Let's talk about how to set up on morning so I'm burning. Can happen in a lot of different formats. You could have a full day program. You can have 1/2 day program. Some people like Teoh spread it out all the first couple weeks for me. I found that the most effective has always been either half day or full day, depending on the company. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about my experience. I stepped into an organization that was in hypergrowth mode. We got them on a schedule where they were hiring classes of about 20 people every two weeks . It was great. You had new hires constantly starting. You had the energy. We had all of our ducks in a row, and I was told to revamp our on boarding program. Originally, it was a full day program. It was something that people loved going through, but they felt really overwhelmed by it. So I took it upon myself to break that program in half. I did to half day programs. I did something that focused on really who we are as a company and the next day focused on what we did, It completely bombed. Why did the program? So what I learned was that while people were overwhelmed by the full day, the half day didn't help. It's not that the half didn't overwhelm them. It's that we needed people to be productive so quickly that they weren't able to attend a two. They would attend date one and then by Day two they'd be slammed with different meetings and other trainings that their manager had set up for them to attend. So I tried to work with the management team and see if the half day could still be doable. It wasn't I went back to the full day, but I learned how to tweak that day. To make it not is overwhelming. I change some of the formats of the actual presentations that we were doing, and with that I added Misamore interaction. I added some fun games and I added some more team building so that the new hires were really looking at themselves as a coat. Work this one over really well. But again, what's right for my company and my past cos it might not be right for yours. So really think of this in terms. It's a jumping off point, So think about how you'll create your program. What's important to your company? Do they need to be up and running by the next day, where you're not gonna have the time to spend? Who are, you know, is on boarding a bit of a longer function? Maybe your company moves a little summer. Maybe it's a little larger. That's great, too. You can divide it up over there first few weeks. So if they learn something new every day about the company, let's dive into the half day program. Half day program is divided into two sections. Who we are and what we do. The focus on Day one is really talking about who the company is as a whole. What's important to the company? What did they value? What should you know as a new high Day two is focused more on what we do. So from an engineering perspective, from a sales perspective, what is the value proposition of your company? What goes into your company? Why is it there? So let's break this down a little further on day one for who we are. I usually start with the culture and company overview again. As I mentioned before, If you have a CEO who's willing to do this, this is the best part for them to dio. It's great to hear you know why the culture is the way it is, what's important as far as cultural values and get a company overview. If you're a startup, people want to know the story. Why did you form the company in the first place? If you're more established company, they're still gonna want to hear what's important to this company. What is ther mission? How happy he stayed in business along, What's the key to their success and having someone in management or the CEO or a founder portray that is really impactful? The next section I usually do is tell an acquisition. Now you might be saying, why Talent acquisition? They've already gone through the recruitment process. Is this really important for them to meet another recruiter or to meet some of they've already met again? It really is. So you want to tell them why you know why they were recruited in the first place? What do you look for in your recruits make them feel special from Intel in acquisition perspective. Also, this is a great time to start hitting a pure network for referrals. New hires. No people and referrals are the best way to hire. I'd like to close out the day with a benefits payroll and HR overview. Let them know who their business partner is, or just who. Maybe you only have one hr person who that person is that they should be going to have issues. Walk them through when payroll is paid. Talk to them about the benefits. They've probably already filled out the benefits paperwork, but he might have questions again. This is a great place to let them know who that contact is. In case we have things a little bit more personal that they can't discuss. The second half of the half day program is really about what we do. So on Day two, I'd like them to learn the INS announce of the company how departments link from one to the other. So I like to start out with a product demo. But what you might be asking is, why does everyone need to see a product demo if someone's an intern and they're working with marketing. Is it really that important that they know how the product works? I think it is. I think, that that's part of being really bought into a company is knowing how the product functions and what goes into that, Um, I've been usually move onto engineering and give the INS announce of how engineering works . Again, you'll be working with management to create these presentations. I tend to create presentations that are about 45 minutes to an hour. To me, those air long enough for people to give high level overview and a little bit of a deep dive without going too deep. So, for example, for engineering, you might want to talk about how each of the engineering teams function. You probably don't need to get into every different coding, uh, coding language that they use, and from there I usually turn to sales. You know, now that the product has been created, who are you selling to? What's the value proposition, what customers asked for and then from there to customer success, one set sail is done. How do we make our customer successful? You could even speak a little bit about pain points and how you're working through those. It's great to give more information about your customers so that people know, no matter what level they're at or what department they're in. How customers could be successful. Other things to know as you go for the program. So what I previously explained was 1/2 day program. This doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes a full day is better. Now we have to worry about is burnout. As you're giving these presentations over a full day, you'll want to add into different elements, so you'll want to make sure lunch is served. You want to make frequent breaks throughout the day so people don't get overwhelmed. You also want to add some interaction, so you want to keep your people awake. So what I like to do is add some ice breakers on this allows people to get to know each other, especially if you have a larger hiring class. This is a great way to get them to melt a little bit more as a Coke, or I'll actually give you an example of a time where a full day was better than half day. So when I started at a prior company. I went into the program and I did a lot of feedback surveys on on boarding, and I kept getting told that the full day was just too long. People were feeling very burnt out. They didn't feel like they were really retaining the knowledge that we were trying Teoh. And that didn't help impact on their experience in the way that we would have liked. So I quick solution was to create 2/2 day programs. What I found out was this actually wasn't beneficial for them. The half days, unfortunately, didn't work because by Day two we needed our people up and running so they would have other trainings and things scheduled by their manager that would interfere with them attending so they would learn the whole what we who we are as a company, but not what we did. And they felt very disconnected. I went back to the full day program and I figured out what the beneficial, beneficial pieces were. And then I pulled out the pieces that more as beneficial to cut it down just slightly on. And then I just tweak to the presentations at It's a more interaction to make sure they were really getting the full value out of this. Some other things to know as you're creating your program. So are you going to include a buddy system? Are you gonna have them meet their body on day one? Are you gonna have someone that they interact with outside of their manager? So a buddy system means a lot of different things, and I'm sure you can find a ton of research on different types of body systems. I found that it's great to have someone that's not their manager for them to interact with . And I usually like to introduce him to that person during the on boarding program, whether it's during lunch, if we're doing a full day or after the first half day. Other things to consider is what training this new employees will need. How will that impact their on boarding? If you're spreading on boarding out? Are they going to be able to attend the different training sessions? You'll be working very closely with the hiring managers when you're creating on boarding programs and schedules for new hires. One of the things I recommend and I believe I mentioned before, is it a rape of guide. This guide is basically a schedule for the new employees to have on their first day. I like to share mine via email with the employees before they start and then on their first day, have it waiting for them at their desk. It basically tells them who they should contact for different issues, what their schedules going toe look like. And any additional training meth E manager wants to add to that. 6. Company Culture: Let's talk about on boarding. For culture, culture is extremely important in a company. Whether you think you have a strong culture or whether you have a weak culture, it's still there and something that you should look at it when you onboard an employee is how are they going to get comfortable with the culture? How are they gonna become part of it? So let's break down what culture is. First culture is a mix of your environment behaviors, the way we do things around here. Values and attitudes. Fundamentals is assumptions and beliefs, so you can see the environment. You can see the behaviors when you step into an office bearers. Bright colors. If there's an open floor plan, you can feel that if there is a huge salesforce, you probably feel the buzz of them on the phones and making deals behavior. So whether it's someone summed over at their desk were hiding out in their cube or someone who's loud and boisterous and rallying the team, you see these types of things when you walk through an office. Some of the invisible causes of culture, which you'll want to address in your on boarding, is really you know how we do things and what our values are. Fundamental assumptions and beliefs are a little hard, harder to address. But if you go back to that values and attitudes, you can talk about your core values. You can let people know kind of how how you address things. Maybe you have a superstructure culture. Maybe you're very conservative. These are things that people know up front. You don't want to have offered surprises. Leave Iran. Maybe you have employees that are located around the globe. Maybe they're all in one location. These are things that will affect your culture. Maybe your company that allows for telecommuting, maybe your company, that it's all hands on deck all the time. These are things that your employees will want to know. They don't want to commit a faux pas, but in one of their first weeks also, what if you have traditions? Traditions are great things that a lot of companies have. Maybe you guys love Halloween, and every Halloween every person dresses up. You have a huge company costume contest, thes air, great fun things that your employees should know about, even if it's far off share with them. day one what those traditions are, Let them know, get them excited. You want your employees to feel just as excited as they did when they signed that offer letter. They're coming on board because they think that you're culture is great. They think that they can do this job and they're really excited to join your team. You want toe reinforce that you want to let them know exactly what the culture is that they signed up for and make them really feel part of it. 7. Onboarding Next Steps: So now that you've laid out some of your goals and what you're going to try to achieve through creating an on boarding program, and you've started to figure out what that on boarding program will look like for your company, what's next? So next really goes to the feedback. You want to monitor the program. You want to conduct check ins with the employees at maybe 45 days or 90 days, or whatever works for your organization. You want to make adjustments to the program based on the feedback that you receive no program. Convey successful out feedback. Just because you feel it's the best possible program it can be doesn't mean that there's not room for improvement. So ask your employees. Figure out what you know, what they got out of boarding and what you can improve on. Maybe they all give you rave reviews. That's wonderful, but at some point you'll have one or two people that give you of a little bit of a critique , and that's okay. That's what makes a program on the best it can possibly be 8. Resources: So I've supplied some resource is for you to review and to help you as you continue to form your on boarding program. There are so many companies that do it right, and I'm sure yours will too. But if you need some help, I'm obviously here to help you. And these resource is air. Great way to find out a little bit more about companies that have seen success with their on boarding. 9. Wrap Up: Thank you so much for joining me from boarding. Wanna one. It has been absolute pleasure having you in my class. I hope that you continue to do your research and you get feedback and figure out how you could make the best possible ongoing program. Remember, this is just the core to start you on an ongoing program. Boarding really goes for 30 60 90 days of a new hire starting. So figure out how you can continue to expand your envoy to make it super successful and make that employees experience last a lifetime. Thanks so much.